Mike Simpson

Mr. SIMPSON

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. SIMPSON. I appreciate the gentleman from Virginia's concern about the cost or the subsidies or whatever he wants to call it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with this amendment. It's a whole different issue. Should the Resources Committee be looking at the prices charged for cattle grazing, or mining, other things? Sure, they should be. It's not the purpose of this bill. It's not the purpose of this amendment. All this amendment says is that in the past, BLM regulations have required that litigants exhaust the administrative review before litigating in Federal court. That means they have to go through the review process that's been set up administratively before they can go to court. Recently, numerous lawsuits over grazing have been filed in Federal courts before the administrative review process had been completed. That means they haven't gone through to find out whether they would win or lose on the administrative side. This ties up the BLM field offices because they must respond to both an administrative process on one side and a litigation process on the other side. This provision simply requires litigants to first exhaust the administrative review before litigating grazing issues in Federal court. Litigants could still file for temporary restraining orders, contrary to what you said. They have to show irreparable harm, and they can still file for temporary restraining orders. Nothing in this provision prevents that. I would hope--and I know the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Dicks, because we've talked about this before--if we could spend more money actually managing the lands rather than in court, we would all be better off. All this says is, follow the administrative procedures, and exhaust them before you go to court. You still have that option after those administrative procedures have been exhausted. As I said, you can still get a restraining order if there's irreparable harm. This, I think, will cut down on the lawsuits, and I think this is a good provision in the bill. And I would hope that the gentlemen from Washington and Virginia would recognize how well the underlying bill is written and would withdraw the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, to answer your question, the reason I'm concerned is the extraordinary amount of money that we are spending in court instead of on managing public lands. That's the real issue here. And we have a process set up where, if you have problems, you can go through an administrative process. Go through it. At the end if you don't like the outcome, go to court. That's all we're saying. And is this legislating on an appropriation bill? Well, I guess funding unauthorized programs is legislating on an appropriations bill also, which we've done in several provisions in this bill which you support. I hope my colleagues will vote against this amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. I'll guarantee there is a misunderstanding here. I yield back the balance of my time. Announcement by the Acting Chair

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, we're not getting rid of law enforcement here. The Coast Guard will still do the safety inspections which they are statutorily authorized to do. The Park Service is not statutorily authorized to do that. They say they have been given that authority from the Coast Guard. I don't think that's the case. So we're not getting rid of anything. What we're doing is clearing up a jurisdictional problem here.

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Alaska.

Mr. SIMPSON. It has been a fascinating debate to listen to the gentleman from Massachusetts and the gentleman from Virginia tell the gentleman from Alaska how it works in Alaska. I will tell you that he knows more about Alaska than any of you ever thought of knowing. The problem is, you say you're trying to save Mr. Young from himself by offering this amendment. We're trying to save the Park Service from itself and the actions that it has taken. Now, logically, your argument says if people have problems in their own areas, then you might see other amendments come up like this and we'll be setting a precedent. Exactly. If we can't have oversight about what goes on and about what the Park Service does, why are we even here? You heard the story, which I won't repeat, of what happened to this gentleman, Mr. Wilde, on the river. We all agree that it's a problem. In fact, when the Park Service stops the gentleman in the middle of the river and tells him to shut down his boat, to shut down his motors--and as they testified in court, they refused to shut down theirs because it was unsafe--who is being protected? That's the point. The safety inspections of these boats will not stop. The statutory authority is given to the Coast Guard. That's who has the statutory authority, not the Park Service. That's the debate that's going on here. This language is intended to only limit the Park Service's authority to engage in boater safety checks on the Yukon River within the Yukon Charley National Preserve, the only non-ocean navigable waterway within Alaska's national parks. It is important to note that this language will not have any effect on the ability of the Coast Guard to conduct the statutorily granted power of conducting boater safety checks. It is intended to avoid similar incidents between the Park Service and the public. Yes, when Mr. Young brought this up originally, the manager of the Park Service could have said, ``You're right. There is a problem there, and I'll get rid of these people.'' They didn't do that. It took this to bring about the actions that have finally occurred: that they've been dismissed from that region. We're trying to prevent the Park Service from harming itself.

Mr. SIMPSON. Reclaiming my time, the Secretarial order which is in question needs to be withdrawn, and then he needs to issue a new one which doesn't include this new designation of wild lands because that still stands out there even though he says he's not going to designate any new wild lands.

Mr. SIMPSON. I yield to the gentleman from Utah.

Mr. SIMPSON. That's exactly correct.

Mr. SIMPSON. The amendment deals with the Secretarial order, not just wild lands. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SIMPSON. Part of the reason I was praising him is because he came over and sat down and listened to us and realized that there was a problem with Secretarial order 3310.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the gentlewoman's amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, while I appreciate what the gentlelady is trying to do, and actually agree with what she's trying to do, I must insist on my point of order against the amendment because it provides an appropriation for an unauthorized program and therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. Clause 2 of rule XXI states in pertinent part: ``An appropriation may not be in order as an amendment for an expenditure not previously authorized by law.'' Mr. Chairman, the amendment proposes to appropriate funds for an earmark that is not authorized. The amendment therefore violates clause 2 of rule XXI. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. SIMPSON. I rise in opposition to the amendment. When I first looked at the President's proposal to eliminate funding for the diesel emissions reductions grant, I knew that there was a budget gimmick that we would have to backfill when we did this budget. This was an issue I addressed with the EPA administrator when she came before the subcommittee to justify her budget. The diesel emissions reduction program, or DERA, is a proven program with known, quantifiable health benefits. The DERA program provides grants to States to retrofit old diesel engines in order to reduce pollution. These grants produce $13 of economic benefit per Federal dollar. And the technology supported by DERA reduced black carbon emissions by 90 percent. When I asked the administrator why she would propose to eliminate funding for a program with proven technology that works in order to fund new, nice-to-have voluntary initiatives that we have no idea what they do, she responded that it was a tough budget choice. Well, it was the wrong choice. I think the committee supports this program, it has in the past. As I said, it's a proven program that has proven results, and that's why we backfilled the request--even though the President didn't request any funding for this--to put $30 million in. It is $20 million below what was funded at the current level. So it did have a reduction just like every other program, but we did keep it alive at $30 million. I yield to the gentlelady from Tennessee.

Mr. SIMPSON. I thank the gentlelady. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, a good friend of mine from Virginia once said that he would hear this on the floor, and I guess this is probably the first time that he's going to hear it; that is, the gentlelady makes a good point. But given the allocation that we have and the low funding level, frankly, we just don't have the money to do what she's requesting. Her offset is to take money out of the Capital Improvement and Maintenance program. That's a program that has already been cut by $94 million in this bill. We've had to make some tough decisions. And while we haven't eliminated the funding for this, obviously, we just don't have that kind of money to put back into it. Every program is going to have to suffer some cuts. I don't think we should be taking money out of the Capital Improvement and Maintenance program allocation that has already been cut by nearly $100 million. So I would oppose the gentlelady's amendment and hope my colleagues will oppose it also. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Chairman, I insist on my point of order. The amendment proposes a net increase in budget authority in the bill. The amendment is not in order under section 3(j)(3) of House Resolution 5, 112th Congress, which states: ``It shall not be in order to consider an amendment to a general appropriations bill proposing a net increase in budget authority in the bill unless considered en bloc with another amendment or amendments proposing an equal or greater decrease in such budget authority pursuant to clause 2(f) of rule XXI.'' The amendment proposes a net increase in budget authority in the bill and is in violation of such section. I ask for a ruling from the Chair.